


Cuffing Season

by itspillowtime



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, Feelings Realization, Mostly Fluff, a tiny bit of angst, and gets her date crashed, in which Rukia learns a new slang word from Ichigo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:06:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28568193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itspillowtime/pseuds/itspillowtime
Summary: "There’s no way in hell I’m letting you make such a stupid mistake and screw yourself over!” he yelled back at her, and saw her open her mouth to retort. “I’m cuffing you, dammit!”
Relationships: Kuchiki Rukia & Kurosaki Ichigo, Kuchiki Rukia/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 62





	Cuffing Season

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick fluffy oneshot for the chilly weather, hope you enjoy :) Special thanks to Ari and Vero for betaing!

Ichigo had rolled his eyes when Keigo first explained it to him.

“So basically it’s when people wanna hook up with someone because it’s cold out? Isn’t that you all the time?”

“Not just anyone!” Keigo scoffed, sounding offended. “I’m looking for my perfect goddess to spend the rest of my life with, who’ll laugh at my jokes, let me touch her ass anytime, and of course we’ll do lots of hooking up too—”

Ichigo had stopped listening after that.

So it was another slang expression about dating he couldn’t be blamed for not knowing, or bothered to remember for that matter. He vaguely remembered the time Keigo had forced him to listen as he educated him about “baes” and “Netflix and chill,” though if he were being totally honest he’d retained almost none of it as he’d tuned out his overly enthusiastic friend shortly after he’d gotten started.

Cold weather or not, Ichigo had never felt the need to enter a relationship in his nearly two decades of life. His father would alternate between sobbing while clutching his wife’s poster, or declaring with annoying certainty that it was simply because his son hadn’t met “the right woman” yet. Ichigo would usually head upstairs to his room and shut the door whenever he started sensing things were heading in the latter direction, knowing it’d mean another lost evening of peace if he weren’t quick about it.

Unfortunately for him, when he got to his room Rukia would usually be sprawled across his _previously_ neatly folded blankets, legs kicked in the air while flipping through a comic or making more god-awful drawings in her notebook. He’d tell her to get off his bed and stop treating his room like her personal lounge, but she’d always just lift a single slender eyebrow at him in that irritating way of hers and ignore him. So there’d go his peaceful night in, anyway.

Come to think of it—considering she wasn’t originally from the world of the living—Rukia was awfully well versed in human slang herself, though naturally it did take her a bit of a learning curve with each new addition to her lexicon. Her first few attempts after she’d arrived in the living world had led to some awkward moments with their classmates, like the time she’d mistaken “fuck yeah” for “fuck you” and he’d ended up having to apologize and explain the mix-up to everyone on her behalf. Other times had been more innocent and gotten a good chuckle out of him, such as when she’d gotten “yeah, no” and “no, yeah” mixed up and responded backward to everything he’d asked for days (he may have asked her some more diabolical questions than usual, just for his own entertainment).

As luck would have it, apparently “cuffing season” was making the rounds as the hottest new phrase at their school, since the moment Ichigo entered his room this time she looked up at him from her phone, spread out comfortably in her usual spot atop his comforter. “Ichigo, what’s ‘cuffing?’”

He scowled and plopped himself down at his desk after removing his messenger bag and setting it on the floor beside him. “It’s rolling up your sleeves.”

“I know that,” she said impatiently with a wave of her hand. “Not _that_ , the modern colloquial meaning!”

“It’s when people get together because they’re lonely and it’s cold outside,” he said dully now that she’d seen through his lie, knowing that giving her anything less than the truth just meant she’d be on his case about it for the next week. “Happy?”

“Interesting...I see.” She returned to her phone, her brow furrowed thoughtfully. “And have you ‘cuffed’ before?”

“Like hell I have!”

He saw her shoot him an annoying smirk despite her eyes never leaving the small device, her thumb flicking up the screen lazily. “You’re not lonely without a companion then? You are a healthy young male, after all.” After a second, she added more seriously, “ _And_ a human.”

“I’m not _desperate_ ,” he corrected, “and I don’t see what being human has to do with it. But what, you’re a hundred fifty years old and you’ve never done it?”

“A bit of cold would never drive me to do something so inane and irresponsible,” she announced, ignoring his first comment, he noticed with a curious gaze the way her shoulders tensed at his remark about being human. “I rather like chilly days.”

“Yeah, more like you like _freakishly_ cold weather.”

Rukia regally ignored his jab. “Also, I have standards for my partners. I am a Kuchiki, after all.”

He rolled his eyes and was about to say “Yeah, impossibly dumb standards, considering whoever’d date you would have to be into short, violent midgets who have an unhealthy obsession with rabbits and suck at drawing, and would also have to be a total idiot and complete sap” but lost the chance as he was cut off by the sound of her horrible _Chappy and Friends_ ringtone blaring loudly as she hopped out the window to answer it.

* * *

He was lying against some pillows he’d stacked against the wall, reading a book in his room a week later when his door opened and Rukia came in, freshly showered with a fluffy towel draped over her pajama-clad shoulders. Without acknowledging him she slid open his closet door and began rummaging for something, and he raised an eyebrow at her from his bed when she pulled out a flowy blue dress Yuzu had given her. “Going somewhere so late?”

“I suppose I am,” was all she replied, before sliding the towel off her shoulders and placing it over the back of his chair. “Now turn around.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “This is my room, midget, go change in the bathroom or something!”

She gave him an aggravated look and turned around herself then with a huff, but made no move to leave the room. “Fine, just don’t look then.”

“Not like there’s anything to even look at,” he retorted dryly, but she would’ve slapped him if she’d seen the way his eyes lingered on her undressing form from over the top of his book.

He hadn’t meant to; she’d simply started unbuttoning her top without warning in front of him, and—well, he was a man after all.

Even with her facing away from him he felt his cheeks turning hot at the sight of the cotton slipping from her shoulders, so the delicate planes of her back were revealed. She wasn’t wearing a bra—why would she be? She’d just gotten out of the shower—and he allowed his gaze to roam shamelessly over her milky white skin. Her pajama shorts sat low on her hips and he felt something stir in his nether regions, making him feel funny as he stared at the small of her back where her tiny waist flared out into the round curve of her ass.

He was _only_ a man.

She shimmied the dress over her head before removing her shorts from underneath it, as if exposing her underwear in front of him were more shameless than being seen shirtless, even if he _hadn’t_ been peeking. He caught a last glimpse of her creamy, pale thighs as she bent over to slip the shorts down and off her ankles.

She straightened up, brushing her hair loose from the collar of the dress where it’d gotten stuck. “Okay, you can look now.”

He didn’t, of course, but rather snapped his gaze back onto the pages before him the moment she turned around, picking up the small purse she’d left on his desk earlier before her shower. “I’m going out now, I’ll be back later tonight,” she confirmed.

“Without company?”

“Maybe,” she shrugged noncommittally.

“With your hair still wet?” he asked. When she ignored him to run her fingers through her damp locks in an attempt to make them behave, he probed suspiciously, “It’s freezing outside.”

“Yes, which I happen to like—like a lunatic, as I recall.”

“I never said you were a lunatic. You’re just crazy.”

She shot him an unamused look while removing her light blue coat from the closet and shrugging it on. “Oh thanks, that’s different.”

He’d just opened his mouth to tell her “you’re welcome” but was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing from downstairs, followed by Yuzu’s voice shouting up to them from below, “I’ll get it!”

Ichigo sensed whose reiatsu was at the door and he immediately turned to look at Rukia, his expression deadpan. “You’re meeting _Renji_?”

She simply shrugged again and repeated, “Maybe,” before grabbing her flats from his closet and stepping out of the room.

He was still processing what had just happened as he listened to her footsteps descend the staircase, and then he heard her tinkling laugh float upstairs from the doorway, and Renji’s deeper voice saying something he couldn’t make out. Then there was the sound of the door reopening and closing, and it was quiet. His head spun with the silence.

It was a date.

She was going on a date with Renji.

There was no doubt what it was in his mind, considering the way she’d dressed up for the occasion—a damn dress without even leggings in this insane temperature—and checked her hair in his mirror before leaving. He’d seen Rukia get ready for school or outings with just the two of them a thousand times, and she’d _never_ fixed her hair for him before.

Shit, wait. For him? Why would she give a crap about looking nice for him?

And why would he care?

The answer was starting to make itself unwelcomingly clear in his mind as he pictured the two shinigami together on their date, her laughing at Renji’s lame-ass jokes and him grinning at her with his stupid ugly face. Jealousy was starting to pool in the pit of his stomach, and though he’d never admit it to anyone in a million years, he wasn’t totally oblivious and knew exactly what it was.

Ah, so he’d been right earlier—he was, in fact, into short, violent midgets who were obsessed with rabbits and sucked at drawing. He was the complete idiot and sap.

“Dammit,” he growled, tossing his book shut to the side to get up from his bed.

As he had started throwing on a jacket, the door to his room slammed open with a loud bang as his father flew through it, looking distraught. “Ichigo! What the hell is going on?”

He quickly shoved his arms into the sleeves. “What?”

“Some delinquent-looking thug with tattoos all over his face just showed up at our house and took Rukia-chan with him!” the hysterical man wept. “I was about to knock his lights out but she said she knew him and went with him! How do we know he didn’t force her to say that, though?”

“I know him too,” Ichigo replied flatly. “He is a delinquent. I’m gonna go get her back right now.”

Isshin didn’t have a second to reply, his bearded face breaking into a broad grin behind his son’s back as Ichigo swept out the door.

* * *

Dammit, where were they going?

He didn’t even have to try to track Rukia’s reiatsu, as it was already on his radar all the time anyway. As he sprinted down the street toward where he could feel hers humming—irritatingly joined by Renji’s—he almost did a double take as he reached the public flower garden, which the town had converted into an illumination event for the season, complete with a light show and towering Ferris wheel.

It was also swarming with couples...or at least soon-to-be couples, if he had to guess.

“Nice, real creative.” He grit his teeth and resumed his chase, feeling their spiritual energies at the other side of the park.

As he turned the bend around a patch of illuminated violets, he finally caught up to them, as they stood toward the front of the line for the Ferris wheel.

“What’re you doing here?” Renji spluttered, clearly not expecting to be interrupted and sounding less than enthused to see him.

Rukia also looked at him curiously. “Ichigo, why are you here? And why aren’t you wearing more, aren’t you cold?”

“I’m fucking freezing,” he answered flatly, the chill having begun to seep into his bones the minute he stopped running. “Rukia, what the hell are _you_ doing?”

She crossed her arms and gave him an icy stare, unamused with his accusatory tone. “You should’ve put on more clothes, fool. And I’m going out with Renji.”

He looked at her stonily. “ _Out_ out, or just out?”

“ _Out_ ,” she said unhelpfully, crossing her arms tighter as she glared back at him. “You could say, I’m _cuffing_.”

He was almost certain the steam rising in the air was from his ears, not his breath. People around them were starting to stare and titter, but he couldn’t give less of a shit at the moment. “No, you’re not. Absolutely not.”

“And why not?”

He jabbed a finger in Renji’s direction, who looked both confused and offended at the intrusive digit suddenly in his face. “Renji? _Renji_ is the high standard you were talking about?” he asked incredulously.

“Renji,” she hissed as they moved up with the line, “is my dear friend. Whom I’ve known forever, and trust, and—”

“But he’s only a friend,” he cut her off, “and that’s all he’ll ever be.”

The man in question grabbed him by the front of his jacket then, interrupting their private back-and-forth. “What’s that supposed to mean, you little piece of shit?” he snarled.

Ichigo ignored him and shoved the older man’s grip off, keeping his eyes anchored to Rukia’s. “Because you’re mine.”

Rukia looked like she was about to lose it, barely containing her anger as she grit her teeth together. “ _Yours?_ In what world, Ichigo? In what world do _I_ belong to _you_?”

“In this world!” he shouted back at her, shooting the nosy bystanders a death glare that had them quickly averting their gazes, “In this world we’re in together, right now, and the one after it, and every world we’re in from here on out!”

“Fuck you!” Rukia yelled back at him as they took a step forward in line, and he took a very short moment to proudly appreciate her usage of the right phrase. “I can go out with, or date or _whatever_ whomever I want to, and it’s none of your business! Renji’s my friend, _you’re_ my friend—”

“Don’t even try to lump us in the same category! There’s no way in hell I’m letting you make such a stupid mistake and screw yourself over!” he yelled back at her, and saw her open her mouth to retort. “I’m cuffing you, dammit!”

Her eyes went wide at his last words, while Renji had no clue what “cuffing” meant but was able to gather enough from the context to be was pissed; Ichigo, however, ignored him and kept his glare focused on Rukia, whose expression was rapidly cycling between shock, indignation, and incredulousness.

They had reached the front of the line, and the elderly attendant looked between them nervously as a couple exited the waiting carriage. “Um, excuse me...I’m sorry, but there are only two riders per carriage…”

Ichigo snapped his eyes away from Rukia momentarily to round on the attendant instead, who looked terrified as hell and unsure of what he’d done to deserve this frightening-looking young man’s wrath. “It’s us! I’m going with her!” he yelled, jabbing his thumb back and forth between himself and Rukia.

She snapped out of her stupor at his unwarranted rudeness toward the poor old man. “Ichigo! Don’t take it out on him!”

“I’m not telling _him_ that; I’m telling Renji, and you!” he snapped back. “And I’ll keep riding this damn thing with you a million times until you admit that I’m the one you should be with!”

A hostile scowl crossed her pretty features. “Better get ready to pay up then, ‘cause you’ll be riding it forever,” she menaced, “and by yourself!”

Unfazed by her threat, he grabbed his wallet and tossed a couple thousand-yen bills at the frozen attendant before grabbing her arm and dragging her with him into the empty carriage, ignoring Renji’s outraged yells and slamming the door shut in his face behind them.

“Ichigo,” said the small woman whose arm he was still holding icily, “You’d better start explaining, and _quickly_ if you don’t want me to freeze you to this structure.”

He released her arm but grabbed her wrist, roughly yanking her down to sit with him as the carriage started moving. “I’m not cuffing you.”

She furrowed her brow at him. “What are you talking about now?”

“I want you,” he growled, “and not just for a few months or weeks or because it’s cold out, and I’m not going to stop wanting you when I get bored or it’s not fucking negative-eighty degrees out anymore. Because I don’t need to follow some stupid trend to know that you’re the only one I want, right now and later and as long as I’m alive.”

Rukia was unimpressed with his monologue. “Is that part of what you’re supposed to say when you cuff someone?”

“You bet your fucking ass it’s not,” he growled. “It’s how I feel about you, dammit.”

Rukia was quiet for a moment and he saw the edge of her mouth quirk up slightly in a smile, but it was an incomplete one. “And what about when you’re not?”

“Not what?”

She looked down. “Not alive anymore,” she said quietly, nervous at the silence that stretched right after her words.

“Idiot,” he was all he finally said, and she looked back up to glare at his typical obliviousness, when she felt his arms pull her against his chest and wrap themselves around her.

“I know you’re worried about hurting me, or that you’ll fuck up my life if we’re together. And maybe you’re scared that even if we are, I’ll forget you once I die and it’ll hurt too much,” he told her, and the flash of pain he saw cross her features confirmed his words. “That might be the case for other people, but we can make it work. _I’ll_ make it work for us.” He paused to give her a small, reassuring smile. “I’ll fight anyone who tries to stop us—friends, your family—dammit, even fate.”

Her eyes widened at the last word, and he could feel her body tense in his arms before she spoke again. “You fool...you can’t just battle your way out of everything. Nor is fate something that can be fought.” Her eyes fell to the floor of the carriage as she sat unmoving in his embrace. “No matter what happens, I am a shinigami and you are a human—eventually, you will perish like all living beings...and even if we do meet again in the afterlife, it will be as strangers,” she whispered.

“No,” he said, trying to control the panic he could feel rising in his chest. “You won’t be the only one who remembers, Rukia.” He hated the doubt that was etched on her face, wanting so badly for nothing more than to hold her tighter, to make her _feel_ his sincerity so there was no question left in her mind. “I’ve been through enough shit with you for several lifetimes to know I’ll want you after that too, when we’re both in Soul Society.” He hesitated, then added quietly, “This will never be just a phase for me.”

She was silent again at that, and he could tell she was thinking about the implications of his words. “I want you to always be with me, Rukia,” he promised, “and it honestly doesn’t matter to me where or when, or who says what.” He released her slightly to look at her meaningfully. “As long as you feel the same way.”

Her eyes met his then, and she gave him a long, indecipherable look. They sat in the carriage in silence, feeling it come to a stop at the peak of the Ferris wheel and rock gently several times before stilling. It felt quieter this high up in the air and away from the crowd below, and he swore he could hear his heart thudding through his chest. Then he heard her take a breath to speak.

“I thought you weren’t desperate,” she said, giving him a soft but genuine smile this time as she placed her hand over his larger one. She gave it a small squeeze, and he marveled at how the dread that had been settling in the pit of his stomach vanished with the one simple gesture.

“Maybe I am,” he replied with a small grin before pulling her back into his arms and leaning down to bring his lips to hers, knowing full well that he wouldn’t have to fight fate—because she was his.


End file.
